


Diphtheria

by izzyb



Series: Alphabet [5]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-06
Updated: 2010-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzyb/pseuds/izzyb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is supposed to be an Earth colony, a place with adequate health care, running water, and food aplenty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diphtheria

McCoy is angry. Okay, so the average crewmember would say that this is normal for him, the scowl darkening his face, his eyes flashing, and his voice yelling, always yelling.

But the average crew member isn't a member of McCoy's hand-picked medical landing team who knows the difference between their CMO grumping at the captain for failing to show for a physical and a downright anger-filled rampage.

In this case, it's the latter.

It starts with examinations of the sick locals—the children first because they look worse off, even though the older generation sitting by the walls of the clinic with swollen necks don't look that much better. This is supposed to be an Earth colony, a place with adequate health care, running water, and food aplenty. However, the med techs scan to find what the _hell_ is wrong with these kids and turn up with an infection practically cured in the twenty-first century.

Fucking diphtheria.

He turns his verbal raging more physical by grabbing the shirt of one of the "doctors"—the people in charge of this mess. "What about the required order of vaccines, huh? How many fucking people died before you realized that you could have prevented or, I don't know, _cured_ this?"

The doctor quakes under his hands and closes his eyes, aiming to escape the wrath in McCoy's, resigned to the guilt churning his gut. "Only two, sir. Two…toddlers."

McCoy lets him go in disgust and turns to the child on the cot in front of him. She looks at him with wide eyes, her lips trembling slightly at his show of violence and his voice drops considerably in volume as he crouches in front of her. "It's okay, sweetheart. We're here to help you."

She nods, so he expects she understands standard at least. He holds her arm in his hand and reaches for a hypospray containing a (highly available and simple) vaccine for the disease. "I have a daughter—she's about your age and just as pretty. The other day she told me about our horses, Spooky and Pokey and how they were chasing—"

He releases the top of the hypo and lets it hiss softly while he finishes his story. He has no clue what he just said, only that she didn't say a word through the whole ridiculous tale or made a sound during her treatment. God.

He lifts his hands to run through his hair in frustration when he finally stands, but remembers the sanitizing shield on them just in time. Before he moves onto the next patient, he looks around the room to see his medical team working efficiently at treating their patients. Their faces are set in determined lines and he sees more than one glare directed at the local doctors.

Despite his foul mood, his heart lightens at the sight of his head nurse brushing violently past the doctor he'd practically strangled earlier and sees that he almost falls on his ass in her wake.

He doesn't grin like he wants to, but he stops thinking so much about things he can't change and does his damn job.


End file.
